UNIVERSITY OF KENT: E-THERAPY GUIDE
Who is the e-therapist?
Anna Edgar-Chan is our e-therapy counsellor. She is BACP (British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy)
accredited and abides by the Code and Ethics as set out in its guidelines for good practice. Details of this may be
found at www.bacp.co.uk.
Anna has counselling experience in Higher Education, Primary Care and the Voluntary Sector with Cruse
Bereavement Care. She has undertaken additional training in online therapy to further her skills in this mode of
counselling.
Who is this service for?
This service is for registered students who are unable to physically access face-to-face counselling due to:
 Being on placement away from campus
 Where school time-tabling or other commitments are such that regular attendance for sessions is made
impossible
 Where disability issues make negotiating the counselling venue difficult/impossible
Please note that we are unable to provide e-therapy to those who are living in USA due to judicial conflict.
What sort of issues can I contact you about?
You can be supported on a range of psychological, emotional or mental health issues, such as adjusting to life,
studying, relationships, sexuality, grief and loss, illness, a traumatic experience, low self-esteem, general depression or
anxiety etc.
Since this is support from a distance, additional considerations need to be made in order to assess whether you can be
adequately held during this difficult time when reflective work is being carried out. Should we feel that e-therapy is
insufficient or counter-productive for your needs, further suggestions of other forms of support will be made instead.
How does it work?
E-therapy is carried out via email exchanges, internet relay chats (IRC), or a combination of both. Up to 5 sessions
are offered as per our face-to-face counselling.
Should you choose email exchanges, your thoughts and feelings are expressed in password-protected Word
documents to be attached to emails you send to us. You may send as many emails as you wish during the week, as
putting down your thoughts and feelings may be releasing in themselves. However, please email documents in
manageable chunks of around 500 words each time (roughly one side of a page in size 12 font). Your emails will be
automatically acknowledged once they are received, but Anna will only reply to them collectively on a weekly basis,
on Thursdays. In order to confirm your slot and receive a reply on Thursday, emails need to be received by 5pm on
Tuesday. Up to an hour is spent on replying to your emails each week and they will be referenced with TE
(therapeutic emails) and sequentially numbered. If Anna finds herself unable to respond within this time frame, you
will be contacted with an alternative day to expect a reply.
Should you choose IRC (instant messaging – not video conferencing), a mutually convenient day and time for 50
minutes sessions will be agreed with Anna, to be carried out once a week during week days between 9am and 4pm,
except for Wednesdays. An invitation to this IRC session using ‘Skype Business’ will be sent to you via email, in
which there is a link to connect you to the meeting for the pre-arranged day and time. Further instructions will be sent
to you in the email.
It is expected that both email exchanges and IRC sessions are carried out on a weekly basis unless agreed otherwise.
Should we not hear from you in any one week, Anna will email you once to enquire about your wellbeing and your
wish to continue with e-therapy. This will be counted towards one of your allocated sessions. Should we not hear
from you after that, we will assume you no longer wish to continue and you will not be contacted again. However, it
is hoped that should you decide to end, you are able to explore this with Anna first.
At the end of your therapy we will ask you to complete a simple evaluation form online. Your feedback is valuable to
us, helping us to monitor and improve our service to you.
Some considerations between email exchanges vs IRC:
Platform
Pros
Cons
Email exchange
Can write/express anytime
Mimics journaling for emotional release
Time for reflection
Time delay in receiving response
Misinterpretation of written words
More self-discipline needed
IRC
Instantaneous communication
More structured, task-focussed
Written dialogue available for reflection
Less grounds covered in time frame
Similar scope for misunderstandings
Restrained within a booked slot
How do I apply for e-therapy?
You can
 email us via our link: https://www.kent.ac.uk/studentwellbeing/contact/index.html
 email us using: [email protected]
 call us on +44 (0)1227 823206
 visit us in person at Keynes College, room IG2 (near the duck pond opposite Dolce Vita)
What happens after I have applied?
We will send/give you a few forms to fill in. The purpose of these is to collect some registration details, to understand
your history and circumstances, and to decide whether e-therapy is the best form of support for you. You are
encouraged to answer the questions in the assessment form as fully as possible as any details may be relevant to the
difficulties you are experiencing.
Once these are completed and returned to us, Anna will email you within 5 working days to either confirm when
sessions can begin, or offer other suggestions if e-therapy is deemed inappropriate.
Will our communications be kept confident?
All email exchanges and transcripts will be kept confidential within the Wellbeing Team, which includes the secretary
and external supervisors. It is also normal practice for counsellors to liaise with the Medical Centre staff if concerns
are noted for shared clients. We normally do not disclose verbal or written information about you to others unless we
have your permission to do so. In rare cases, disclosure may occur without your consent if there is good reason to
believe that you or others are at risk, or that disclosure is required by the English judicial system.
Therapeutic email exchanges are sent as an attachment in Word format which is password protected for additional
security. Your passwords will be given to you once therapy starts. Email exchanges and invitations to IRC sessions
will only be conducted via the Kent email address (ending with @kent.ac.uk) as this adds to a more secure pathway of
communication.
Computers used at the Wellbeing Team are also password accessed and protected by anti-viral software. However,
although every care is taken to ensure confidentiality, intrusions such as hacking means that total security cannot be
guaranteed.
We would also encourage you to protect your own privacy such as considering access to your computer by others,
installing appropriate anti-viral software, and not reading/sending emails or conducting IRC sessions in a public place,
especially if sensitive issues are being discussed.
Do you keep copies of our communication?
Basic registration and statistical information is recorded about each contact made and this general information is
collated onto our database anonymously. This data is used for an Annual Report. We comply with the Data Protection
Act (1998) which requires us to obtain your consent for such records to be kept at the point of registration.
Email correspondence will be kept for the duration of your work. These will then be erased within one year from the
last contact. Transcripts from the therapy sessions will be stored in a file on Anna's computer, which is kept
separately from any documents containing your personal information. All records, transcripts and case notes are then
destroyed after five years, as recommended by our professional body.
Concession letters, references or other letters requested by you regarding contact with the Service are only provided
after consultation with you. Such letters will not be stored on the computer.
We ask that you also take responsibility for safe-keeping of any correspondence received. No information about the
content of your sessions, either directly from transcripts or re-told in your own words, are to be posted in the public
domain, such as social networking sites.
What can I do should I want to complain?
Should you have any complaint, we ask that you contact the Wellbeing Team in the first instance. Should the matter
be unresolved, formal complaints may be made via BACP, details for which may be found at www.bacp.co.uk.
What if I need to contact my therapist urgently?
If it is for an administrative or appointment issue, you can contact us via the routes given under the heading of “How
do I apply for e-therapy”.
However, please note that e-therapy, or face-to-face counselling, is NOT a crisis service. Should you need to speak to
someone urgently, please contact the following services:
 Your doctor
 NHS Direct 111 (UK)
 The Samaritans 116 123 (UK), [email protected]
 Nursing Service 01227 823503 (Canterbury Campus: open 24/7, term time)
 Campus Security 01227 823333 (Canterbury Campus: emergencies only)
 Befrienders Worldwide, www.befrienders.org